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The German Path to War
Adolf Hitler’s theory of racial
domination laid the foundation for
aggressive expansion outside of
Germany.
The German Path to War (cont.)
• Adolf Hitler became chancellor of the
German government with support of the
Nazi Party.
• Hitler wanted to build a vast Aryan racial
state, known as the Third Reich, which he
believed would dominate Europe for
thousands of years.
The German Path to War (cont.)
• Hitler violated the Treaty of Versailles by
creating a new air force and expanding
Germany’s army. France, Great Britain, and
Italy condemned these actions.
• Hitler’s first aggressive move occurred when
he invaded a demilitarized zone in
Germany known as the Rhineland.
The German Path to War (cont.)
• Great Britain adopted a policy of
appeasement and did not take military
action against Germany.
The German Path to War (cont.)
• Hitler looked for allies with common political and
economic interests, which he found in Benito
Mussolini of Italy.
• Mussolini and Hitler created the Rome-Berlin Axis,
a pact recognizing their shared political and
economic goals.
The German Path to War (cont.)
• By November of 1936, Hitler formed an anticommunist alliance with Japan known as the
Anti-Comintern Pact.
• Hitler annexed his homeland
of Austria on March 13,
1938.
• Hitler announced, in 1938,
that he would wage a world
war if he was denied
occupation of Sudetenland.
The German Path to War (cont.)
• France, Great Britain, Italy, and Germany all
agreed to Hitler’s plan at the Munich
Conference, abandoning the Czechs.
• Hitler continued to advance into
Czechoslovakia and eventually demanded
the Polish Port of Danzig.
The German Path to War (cont.)
• Great Britain and
France soon realized
they would need help
from Joseph Stalin
and the Soviet Union
to contain Nazi
aggression.
The German Path to War (cont.)
• To avoid fighting a war on two fronts and to
gain access into Poland, Hitler signed the
Nazi-Soviet Non-aggression Pact on August
23, 1939, with Joseph Stalin.
The German Path to War (cont.)
• On September 1, 1939, German forces
invaded Poland, causing Britain and France
to declare war on Germany two days later.
The Japanese Path to War
The need for natural resources fueled
the Japanese plan to seize other
countries.
The Japanese Path to War (cont.)
• The Japanese cleverly devised a ruse to
justify conquering Manchuria, a country
containing 30 million Chinese and vast
natural resources.
• On September 18,
1931, Japanese
troops dressed as
Chinese and blew
up a portion of a
Japanese-owned
railway.
The Japanese Path to War (cont.)
• Against worldwide protest, Japan “retaliated”
by seizing and renaming Manchuria as
Manchukuo.
• Chiang Kai-Shek, leader of the
Chinese Nationalist Party, was
embattled in a civil war against
the Chinese Communist Party
and did not want to go to war with
Japan.
• Chiang and the Communists put
their differences aside and fought
against the Japanese for the
entire length of the war.
The Japanese Path to War (cont.)
• Japan wanted a New Order in East Asia,
which would comprise Japan, China, and
Manchuria, and act as a model for other
developing nations.
• Japan did not want to fight
the European colonial
powers or the United
States, but by 1940, they
began to demand rights to
French Indochina.
• The United States objected
and warned that it would
retaliate with economic
THE END
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